The Unbearable Lightness of Scones: A 44 Scotland Street Novel Read online

  The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

  ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

  Hachette Digital

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1. Love, Marriage and Other Surprises

  2. By the Side of the Bridal Path

  3. Wedding Daze, and a Hint of Doubt

  4. Answers to the East Lothian Question

  5. Almost a Perfect Summer Night

  6. Still Life, with Cyril

  7. Art of the Matter

  8. Puppy Facts

  9. Scout’s Honour

  10. A Setback for the Bertie Project

  11. A Spoiled Secret

  12. Of Love and Lies

  13. A Poser for Bruce

  14. From Arbroath with Love

  15. When even Puppy Love has its Limits

  16. Paradise Found

  17. A Dream of Love

  18. The Blind Biker of Comrie

  19. Heavenly Thoughts

  20. Be Prepared for a Little White Lie

  21. Lost Opportunities

  22. Room for Misunderstanding

  23. Omen Away

  24. The Sea, the Sea

  25. Mothers and Other Incomprehensible Mysteries

  26. Gender Agendas

  27. Pink for Danger

  28. Unmarried Bliss

  29. An Unwelcome Message

  30. Edinburgh Noses through the Ages

  31. Selling a Pup (or Six)

  32. Last Thoughts

  33. The Longest Hour

  34. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall . . .

  35. The Seriously Sexy Face of Scotland

  36. Watson the Watsonian

  37. Life Lines

  38. Stuart is Stupefied

  39. The Teacup Storm Revisited

  40. A Delivery that Leads to Temptation

  41. Police Questioning

  42. Beach Bureaucracy

  43. Marching Orders

  44. Moving Stories

  45. Apposite Posers for a Poseur

  46. Rank Insiders in the Pecking Order

  47. The New Pretender

  48. Loyalties Tested

  49. A Subtle Knife Question

  50. Portrait of the Artist as a Surprised Man

  51. Prodigious Fibs

  52. Scouting for Girls

  53. Be Prepared, Be Very Prepared

  54. Badge of Honour

  55. Profile of a Talented Talent-Spotter

  56. A Bit of a Poser

  57. Uncle Jack’s Visit

  58. At The Tanglin Club

  59. Cat People

  60. Huddles, Guddles, Toil and Muddles

  61. Portrait of a White Lie

  62. The Marrying Kind of Man

  63. A Dug’s a Dug for a’ that

  64. Childhood Memories

  65. From Hero to Zero in One Simple Word

  66. Greed All About It

  67. A Private View

  68. Entrances and Exits

  69. Death of a Gangster

  70. Life, Death and the Road to the Isles

  71. A Threat from Irene

  72. The New Psychotherapist

  73. Of Men and Make-Up

  74. The Jacobite Rally

  75. Bruce Discovers his Feminine Side

  76. A Changed Man

  77. Up for the Cup

  78. Antonia’s Big Secret

  79. On the Way to a Funeral

  80. Let us now Praise a Rather Infamous Man

  81. Best-Laid Plans

  82. Lessons in Leadership

  83. A Shot in the Park

  84. Meet the Archers

  85. Gangsters, Drugs, Dreams - and Dogs

  86. To Catch a Dealer

  87. Deceptive Appearances

  88. Illicit Skills

  89. Confession Time

  90. Transvestites Rescued in the Minch

  91. Fathers and Sons

  92. A Complex Complex

  93. A Dinner Invitation

  94. Bruce Amazes Himself

  95. The Deepest Secret Edinburgh Has to Offer

  96. A Scorched-Earth Wardrobe

  97. Olive is Outraged

  98. The Lightness of Scones

  99. A Civilised Menu

  100. A World Put Back in Balance with Love

  Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over sixty books on a wide array of subjects. For many years he was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and served on national and international bioethics bodies. Then in 1999 he achieved global recognition for his award-winning series The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, and thereafter devoted his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street and the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series. His books have been translated into forty-five languages. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Elizabeth, a doctor.

  Praise for Alexander McCall Smith’s writing:

  ‘Perfect escapist fiction’

  The Times

  ‘There is a timelessness to the tales, yet they are also of the moment . . . His talent is to see the god in small things’

  Sunday Times Scotland

  ‘Simple, elegantly written and gently insightful’

  Good Book Guide

  ‘Highly amusing, intelligent and heart-warming’

  Scotsman

  ‘A treasure of a writer whose books deserve immediate devouring’

  Marcel Berlins, Guardian

  ‘It is hard to think of a contemporary writer more genuinely engaging . . . his novels are also extremely funny: I find it impossible to think of them without smiling’

  Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

  ‘Alexander McCall Smith’s stories are subtle, gentle works of art’

  Daily Telegraph

  ‘Delicious, light-hearted stuff and I love it - my only criticism is that these books are just not long enough’

  The Lady

  Also by Alexander McCall Smith

  THE NO.1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIES

  The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

  Tears of the Giraffe

  Morality for Beautiful Girls

  The Kalahari Typing School for Men

  The Full Cupboard of Life

  In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

  Blue Shoes and Happiness

  The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

  The Miracle at Speedy Motors

  THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB SERIES

  The Sunday Philosophy Club

  Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

  The Right Attitude to Rain

  The Careful Use of Compliments

  The Comfort of Saturdays

  THE 44 SCOTLAND STREET SERIES

  44 Scotland Street

  Espresso Tales

  Love Over Scotland

  The World According to Bertie

  THE VON IGELFELD NOVELS

  The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom

  Audio editions are available from Hachette Digital

  The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

  ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

  Hachette Digital

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Published by Hachette Digital 2009

  Copyright © Alexander McCall Smith 2008

  Illustrations copyright © Iain McIntosh 2008

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 0 7481 1108 4

  Hachette Digital

  An imprint of

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DY

  An Hachette Livre UK Company

  This book is for Jan Rutherford and Lesley Winton

  1. Love, Marriage and Other Surprises

  The wedding took place underneath the Castle, beneath that towering, formidable rock, in a quiet church that was reached from King’s Stables Road. Matthew and Elspeth Harmony had made their way there together, in a marked departure from the normal routine in which the groom arrives first, to be followed by the bride, but only after a carefully timed delay, enough to make the more anxious members of her family look furtively at their watches - and wonder.

  Customs exist to be departed from, declared Matthew. He had pointedly declined to have a stag party with his friends but had none the less asked to be included in the hen party that had been organised for Elspeth.

  ‘Stag parties are dreadful,’ he pronounced. ‘Everybody has too much to drink and the groom is subjected to all sorts of insults. Left without his trousers by the side of the canal and so on. I’ve seen it.’

  ‘Not always,’ said Elspeth. ‘But it’s up to you, Matthew.’

  She was pleased that he was revealing himself not to be the type to enjoy a raucous male-only party. But this did not mean that Matthew should be allowed to come to her hen party, which was to consist of a dinner at Howie’s restaurant in Bruntsfield, a sober do by comparison with the Bacchanalian scenes which some groups of young women seemed to go in for.

  No, new men might be new men, but they were still men, trapped in that role by simple biology. ‘I’m sorry, Matthew,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that it’s a good idea at all. The whole point about a hen party is that it’s just for women. If a man were there it would change everything. The conversation would be different, for a start.’

  Matthew wondered what it was that women talked about on such occasions. ‘Different in what way?’ He did not intend to sound peevish, but he did.

  ‘Just different,’ said Elspeth airily. She looked at him with curiosity. ‘You do realise, Matthew, that men and women talk about rather different things? You do realise that, don’t you?’

  Matthew thought of the conversations he had with his male friends. ‘I don’t know if there’s all that much difference,’ he said. ‘I talk about the same things with my male and female friends. I don’t make a distinction.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said Elspeth. ‘But the presence of a man would somehow interrupt the current. It’s hard to say why, but it would.’

  So the subject had been left there and Elspeth in due course enjoyed her hen party with seven of her close female friends, while Matthew went off by himself to the Cumberland Bar. There he met Angus Lordie sitting alone with his dog, Cyril.

  ‘I suppose that this is a sort of stag party for me,’ Matthew remarked to Angus.

  Underneath the table, Cyril, who had long wrestled with temptation to bite Matthew’s ankles, suddenly leaned forward and licked them instead.

  ‘There, you see,’ said Angus. ‘When a dog licks you, it confers a benediction. Cyril understands, you know. That’s his way of saying that he’s going to be sorry to lose you.’

  ‘But he’s not going to lose me,’ protested Matthew. ‘One doesn’t completely disappear when one gets married.’

  Angus looked at Matthew with his slightly rheumy eyes. ‘Really? Well, we won’t be seeing much of you here after the event.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Matthew. He raised his glass of beer to his lips and looked at Angus. Angus was much older than he was and was unmarried, which meant either that there was some profound reason - lack of interest - or that he had been successful in evading commitment. Now, which of these was it?

  ‘What about yourself, Angus?’ Matthew asked. ‘Have you ever thought of . . . tying the knot with anybody?’

  Angus smiled. ‘Nobody would have me, I fear. Nothing would give me greater pleasure, I suspect, but, well, I’ve never really got myself organised.’

  ‘Of course, you’d need to find somebody capable of taking on Cyril,’ said Matthew. ‘And that wouldn’t be easy.’

  Angus shot Matthew an injured glance and Matthew immediately realised his tactlessness.

  ‘Cyril is a slight problem,’ said Angus. ‘It’s difficult being canine, you see. Lots of women turn their noses up at dogs. Particularly with Cyril being the sort of dog that he is. You know, a wandering eye and some unresolved personal freshness issues. But I wish people would see beyond that.’

  Matthew nodded. Angus would be a task enough for any woman, and to add Cyril to the equation made it even more of a burden. ‘What about Domenica?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I’ve always thought that you and she might make a good couple.’

  Angus looked wistfully at the ceiling. ‘I’ve thought that too,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think there’s much of a chance there. She can’t abide Cyril, you see, and I can hardly get rid of him after all these years. His heart would break.’

  ‘She’d get used to him,’ said Matthew. ‘And dogs don’t last forever.’

  Angus shook his head. ‘No prospect,’ he said. ‘But let’s not talk about me and my problems. What about the wedding? I hear you’ve got Charlie Robertson to do it for you. I knew him when he was at the Canongate Kirk. He does a nice line in weddings, and Her Majesty used to enjoy his sermons, I gather, when she was in residence at Holyrood. She must have had to listen to an awful lot of wheezy lectures from various archbishops of Canterbury - it must have been so refreshing for her to get a good-going, no-nonsense sermon from somebody like Charlie. You know where you stand with the Church of Scotland, although as an Episcopalian, I must say there’s a certain folksiness . . .’

  ‘We’re making certain changes,’ said Matthew. ‘We’re walking up the aisle together. And we’re having a reading from Kahlil Gibran. You know, The Prophet. There’s a chapter there about love and commitment.’

  Angus began to let out an involuntary groan, but stopped himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Yes. Kahlil Gibran. I see. And the honeymoon?’

  Matthew leaned forward and whispered. ‘I haven’t told Elspeth. It’s going to be a surprise. Australia!’

  Angus looked into his glass. For some inexplicable reason, he felt a sense of foreboding, as if a sinister angel had passed overhead and briefly looked down upon them, as one of those lumbering heavy bombers, laden with high explosive, may spot a target below - a quiet lane with lovers popular, the innocent going about their business, a farmer driving a truck along a winding lane; irresistible temptations for a sinister angel.

  2. By the Side of the Bridal Path

  Inside the church, three hundred guests - and a handful of regular members of St Cuthbert’s, entitled in that capacity to attend any service - sat waiting for the ceremony to begin. Matthew had told Elspeth that she should invite as many friends as she wished. His father was paying for the wedding, and had imposed no limits; his own list, Matthew felt, was at risk of being embarrassingly small: a few old friends from school, his father and his new wife, a couple of distant cousins, Angus Lordie, Domenica Macdonald, Big Lou, James Holloway; that was about all.

  Pat, Matthew’s former girlfriend and occasional employee, had been invited too, and had accepted. Much to Matthew’s relief it appeared that she bore no ill-will towards the woman who had supplanted
her in Matthew’s affections; and for her part, Elspeth, by nature, was not one to be jealous. Matthew had reassured her that although he had been serious about Pat, his seriousness had been a mistake; misplaced seriousness, as he described it. ‘She was really more of a sister,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I . . .’ he left the rest unsaid, and it was not referred to again. So many men might say ‘I don’t know why I . . .’ when talking about the carnal, reflected Elspeth; all men might, in fact.

  Elspeth had invited everyone in her address book and many who were not. All her colleagues from the Steiner School were there, her suspension having been formally rescinded after the evidence of the other children - prominent among them Tofu - that Olive’s account of the incident in which the teacher had pinched her ear was at the very least confused, and more likely mendacious. But by the time her reputation was cleared she had already resigned, become engaged, and had decided not to go back to teaching.

  As well as Elspeth’s former colleagues, an invitation had been given to all the children in the class she had taught. They were to attend under the supervision of their new teacher, who had led them into the church as a group and taken them to the pews reserved for them up at the top on the left. Here they sat—Merlin, Pansy, Lakshmi, Tofu, Hiawatha and the rest, hair neatly combed, their legs swinging freely, not quite touching the floor, whispering to each other, awed by the solemnity of the occasion and the significance of what was about to happen to their beloved Miss Harmony.

  ‘She’ll probably have a baby in a couple of weeks,’ said Olive knowingly. ‘I hope it’s a girl. It’ll be a big tragedy if it’s a boy.’